


we've always walked a very thin line

by AnnCherie



Category: Teenage Bounty Hunters
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 12:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25969309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnCherie/pseuds/AnnCherie
Summary: hours post s1 finale
Relationships: Sterling Wesley/April Stevens, sterling wesley /april stevens
Comments: 23
Kudos: 261





	we've always walked a very thin line

  


  


Sterling is in her bed when she gets the text from April telling her to come outside. A glance from the window shows the girl’s expensive car in the driveway and Luke still guarding the house front porch like a well-intentioned Doberman. She hated tv news in a small town that talked. It had only been an hour since she had arrived home.

It had also only been a few more hours since she and April had ended their-- relationship? Fling?

After she had refused to talk to her parents, hurt and angrier than any teenage in the world-- or at least her town-- had the right to be, she had driven home with Bowser and refused to say more than a few spiteful sentences to her parents. Blair had tried to console her, but just the sight of Blair confused her too.

In the end speaking with April is better than being in her house. She sneaks out the front door, passing Luke with only a stern warning to stay put because he’d keep her safer there, and walks up to the car. April gestures her inside for privacy, and the second Sterling sits down in the passenger seat she’s assaulted with a constricting hug.

“You're safe. Oh, you're safe. You're okay,” gushes the girl.

The physical contact from the one person in the world she wanted to be with hurt too much on top of the horrible truth of how not okay she was, and in seconds Sterling is crying into April’s shoulder until she can’t cry anymore. April had stayed silent, but when Sterling pulls back she puts that perfect hand back to her face as she had in the arcade.

April’s eyes are big and tear filled as well, so much concern knitted into her expression. “All I could think about was how you could have died and I was too much of a coward..” she gasps, following up with a desperate, “I can try, I can come out, I--,”

“No, April.” Sterling manages to say, wishing anything she didn’t have to say it. “Stay safe.” 

Glancing at the front porch where Luke is glaring at the road in preparation to fight off any bad guy, April quietly says, “So I did lose you, didn't I?”

"No that's not-- he's doing that on his own.” Sterling sighs. How could her entire life have upended on itself in the matter of hours? Every single relationship, every one, had now been tainted and changed. “I don't want anyone anymore. People can't be trusted, and even if they could I have no idea who I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Everyone betrays each other.” 

With a sad look, April still softly says, "You still have your sister, Sterl.”

A sob escapes Sterling just at the word ‘sister’ and April’s eyes widen in confusion. Sterling is ugly crying now, not that she had makeup on at this point in the night, but she still hated being vulnerable like this after the school lock in. “She's not my sister or my twin… My mom told me I'm her cousin.”

“Cousin?” April says. “Your mom doesn't have siblings. It's in your dossier.”

Pinning that for later-- hadn’t April said she wasn’t important enough for one?-- she continues to let the secrets pour out of her, speaking them out loud for the first time. Every one she loved had been there, after all, and she didn’t think Luke could handle complex family drama in the way April would understand.

“Actually mom had an identical twin this whole time, and the one who commits grand arson on abortion clinics, kidnapped me at gunpoint, and _smokes_ is actually my biological mother.” Bowser would probably have told her to reorder those sins, but Sterling continues. “Not the one who's lied to me about absolutely everything for 16 years.”

Looking shell shocked-- Sterling wishes she could go back to that feeling and not the sinking depression that had come with acceptance-- April fumbles with an attempt at comforting words. “Oh Sterl, I'm so sorry. I promise you can trust me. Even if I'm not out we can change. We can be friends at school, right?”

But the words aren’t comforting, as much as they both want them to be. "I'm not safe with you." 

"What's that supposed to mean?” April blinked. “Are you using my dad as an excuse now because you love Luke and I was some experiment?"

Sterling’s stomach plummets. “ _Of course not_ \--,”

“Then why?” she asks, hurt in her voice. “What aren't you saying?” Then, with too much cleverness that Sterling should have expected, April narrows her eyes. “Wait, why did he ask about you and Blair?”

This night could not possibly get worse. “April, no. I can't tell you, I promised several people. God wouldn’t want me to--,”

Her gaze turned cold. “I'll just ask my father then.”

Nervous on so many levels for the safety of both April, Blair, and herself, she begs. “You can't-- you-- he hates Blair and I, okay?”

“What?”

“He just hates us. He can't stand our family and my influence on you with me getting fellowship leader first, you know, sleeping with Luke and drinking and--”

“You're a terrible liar.” April snapped. “Don't make me give you a stress period.”

“You don't understand.”

But April is as stubborn as Blair, the same fire and bullheadedness the second they felt an inkling of suspicion in the air. “Make me.”

Caving after everything, after the emotions involved with keeping this lie in the first place, of owing April the truth, of the horrible evening and how lies didn’t keep people safe if she looked at her own family situation, she rushes through an explanation. “We turned your dad in. We found out that he hurt that prostitute, we got angry, and we turned him over to the cops because he skipped court and we're-- we're bounty hunters. Blair, Bowser, and I. Bowser is great, you should--”

“You what?” April cut through, the same hurt of betrayal Sterling recognized feeling this evening. “You turned him in. You.”

Tears are back in her eyes and she gasps with a small son. “I'm _so_ sorry, April, you don't understand…”

“I can't believe you.” The girl snaps back with vitriol and her own swallowed sob. “You got with me because you wanted intel on my dad.”

Terror rang through Sterling as she spoke, “That is _not true_ , April. I swear, I--”

"Shove it up your ass, Wesley. Get out of my car.”

“April please--,”

“ _Now_!”

So she complies, watching the first girl she loved accelerate dangerously out of the driveway and tried to pause her sobbing before going back toward the house. Luke takes her in her arms, and even though she had told him flat out the kiss had been a mistake earlier she still can’t help but let the one constant in her life be a reprieve for a minute.


End file.
